Scenarios

A very short, readable and highly practical how-to guide to all you ever wanted to know about running your own scenario projects, but were afraid to ask. Based on 20 years of experience working with people in corporations, NGOs, schools and universities.§§Why Scenarios are Good for You§Any choice you make, any decision you take and any plan you set in motion will make sense or not, will turn out to have been wise or foolish and will be profitable or not, inevitably and exclusively, in the future. This being so you can, firstly, cross your fingers and hope for the best.§Second, you can rely on your intuition. Rely, in other words, that your gut feeling won't let you down. Many highly acclaimed leaders' claim to fame is that they have a superior intuition and without being able to explain fully why and how they decide what they decide, in the end, their decisions turn out to be right.§A third possibility is to ride a favorable trend. If things are going your way, if the rising tide, as we know it does, is already lifting all boats, it's probably difficult to make a wrong decision. But remember, in the end, the tide turns and a trend, as some of us have had the opportunity to learn, is a trend only until it bends.§A fourth alternative is currently much en vogue, namely to trust in big data. The hope is that some smart algorithm is going to save your day. But remember Nate Silver's admonition in his recent book "The Signal and the Noise", who writes that the first, and sometimes only, thing big data does is to increase the level of the noise.§The fifth alternative, much liked by those in charge when things go wrong, is to delegate, and if all else fails, to deny responsibility.§Or, you could use scenarios to make better decisions today for an inevitably uncertain future. This short book is about the process of creating and applying scenarios in your world. About the how, in other words.